The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844

‘I can, and without my aid the secret must be hid forever.’

Holmes rose, angrily, from his seat.

‘What brought you here?’ demanded he.

‘Be seated, I beg of you,’ said Rust, bowing, and speaking in a low, mocking tone. ‘What brought me here? You called upon me, I think; it was but civil to return the visit. I have come to do so.’

‘This is idle, Sir,’ replied Holmes, coldly. ‘You came for some purpose. Name it. The sooner this interview is over, the more agreeable I suppose it will be for both of us.’

‘For me, certainly,’ said Rust, in a manner so constrained and different from his usual one, that the lawyer was in doubt whether he was in jest or earnest. Then he added, in a bitter tone: ‘You ask what brought me here. Destiny, folly, revenge perhaps against my own heart’s blood. Call it what you will; here I am; and ready to assist in the very matter which now perplexes you. What more do you want?’

Holmes replied with a sarcastic smile: ‘The assistance of Michael Rust is likely to be as great as his sincerity. We certainly should place great reliance on it.’

Rust, perfectly unmoved by the taunt, answered in a tone so bitter, so full of hatred to himself, so replete with the outpouring of a cankered heart, so despairing and reckless, that the lawyer felt that even in him there might be some truth:

‘I care not whether you trust me or not; I care not whether you believe me or not. If Michael Rust could ever have been swayed by the opinions of others, it would have been before this; it’s too late to begin now. I came here because I have failed in all I undertook; because I am beginning to hate the one for whom I have toiled, until I grew gray with the wearing away of mind and body; because the soul of life is gone. I do it out of revenge against that person. There is no remorse; no conscience; but it’s revenge. Look at me; that person has blasted me. Do I not show it in every feature and limb? Now you understand me. My schemes are abandoned; and I shall soon be where neither man nor law can reach me. My secret can do me no good; why should I keep it? Perhaps the recollection of past days and of past favors from one whom I have wronged, may have had its weight; perhaps not. I’ve come to tell the truth. If you will hear it, well; if not, I go, and it goes with me.’

Holmes and Harson exchanged looks, and Harson nodded, as if in acquiescence to some proposition which he supposed the looks of the other to indicate.

‘Well, Sir,’ replied Holmes, ‘we will hear what you have to say.’

‘Stop,’ said Rust; ‘before uttering a word, I must have a promise.’

The lawyer looked at him, and then at Harson, as much as to say: ‘I expected it. There’s some trick in it.’

Rust observed it, and said: ‘Spare your suspicions; I have come here to be frank and honest in word and deed; and Michael Rust can be so, when the fancy seizes him. The promise I require is this; whatever I may reveal, no matter what the penalty, you will not set the blood-hounds of the law on my track within forty-eight hours. I have yet one act to perform in the great farce of life. That accomplished, you may do your worst.’

‘This is all very strange,’ said Holmes, eyeing the thin, excited features of his visitor, as if not altogether sure of his sanity; ‘if you fear the punishment of your misdeeds, why reveal them? Why place yourself in our power, or run the risk of our interfering with your future movements?’

Rust replied bitterly: ‘You shall hear. My whole life has been spent for one person, my own child. Every faculty of mind and body has been devoted to her, and every crime I have committed was for her. Scruples were disregarded; ties of blood set at defiance; every thing that binds man to man, that deters from wrong, were disregarded, if they stood in the way of that one grand aim of life. She forgot all! She has broken me down, heart and spirit. Love and devotion were crushed with them, and revenge has sprung up from their ruins. Ay! revenge against my own child! Should any thing prevent my doing what I have yet to do, and should my brother die, and his children not be found, she would be his heir. I would have labored and succeeded, for one who has disgraced me, and made me what you see me!’

He stretched out his thin hands, displaying the large veins, coursing beneath the skin, and apparently full to bursting. ‘How wasted they are!’ He smiled as he looked at them, and then asked: ‘Will you promise?’

The lawyer turned to Harson, and then said: ‘I promise; do you, Harson?’ Harry nodded.

‘Good!’ said Rust, abruptly. ‘You know my name, and much of my history. All the facts which you detailed to me at my office a short time since are true—true almost to the very letter. Michael Rust and Henry Colton are one. The plodding, scheming, heartless, unprincipled Henry Colton, who could sell his brother’s own flesh and blood for gold; who could forget all the kindnesses heaped upon him, and stab his benefactor, and this wreck of Michael Rust, are one!’

He struck his hand against his chest, and strode up and down the room, biting his lips. ‘He was rich, and I was poor: he gave me the means of living, but I wanted more. I had my eye on his entire wealth, and I wanted him to be in his grave. But he thwarted me in that. Feeble and sickly, so that a breath might have destroyed him, he lived on, and at last, as if to balk me farther, he married. Two children were born; two more obstacles between me and my aim. Two children!—two more of the same blood for me to love. Ho! ho! how Michael Rust loved those babes!’ exclaimed he, clutching his fingers above his head, and gasping as he spoke. He turned, and fastening his glaring eye on the lawyer, griped his fingers together, with his teeth hard set and speaking through them, said in a sharp whisper: ‘I could have strangled them!’

He paused; and then went on: ‘At last came the thought of removing them. At first it was vague: it came like a shadow, and went off; then it came again, more distinct. Then it became stronger, and stronger, until it grew into a passion—a very madness. At last my mind was made up, and my plans formed. I trusted no one, but carried them off myself, and delivered them to the husband of that woman,’ pointing to Mrs. Blossom. ‘I told him nothing of their history: he was paid to take charge of them, and asked no questions. Then came the clamor of pursuit. I daily met and comforted my broken-hearted brother and his wife: I held out hopes which I knew were false; I offered rewards; I turned pursuit in every direction except the right one. They both thanked me, and looked upon me as their best friend; and so I was, for I kept up hope; and what is life without it? At last the search approached the neighborhood where the children really were, and they were sent to the country. A man by the name of Craig took them. The only person who was in the secret was Enoch Grosket; but he knew nothing respecting the history of the children, nor where they went.’

‘Where was it?’ inquired Holmes, anxiously, ‘and to whom did you entrust them?’

‘I have prepared it all,’ said Rust; he drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to him. ‘You’ll find it there, and the names of the persons; they know nothing of the children; but they can identify them as those left with them four years ago; and they still have the clothes which they wore at the time; but the girl’s resemblance to her mother will save all that trouble.’

He paused, with his dark eyes fastened on the floor, and his lips working with intense emotion.

‘And is it possible that the love of gold can lead one to crimes like these!’ said Holmes, in a subdued tone.

‘Love of gold!’ exclaimed Rust, fiercely; ‘what cared I for gold? Ho! ho! Michael Rust values gold but as dross; but it is the world; the cringing, obsequious, miser-hearted world, that kisses the very feet of wealth, which set Michael Rust on; it was this that lashed him forward; but not for himself. I married a woman whom I loved,’ said he, in a quick, stern tone; ‘she abandoned me and became an outcast, and paid the penalty by an outcast’s fate: she died in the streets. The love which I bore her I transferred to my child. I was poor, and I resolved that she should be rich. Can you understand my motive now? I loved my own flesh and blood better than my brother’s. I have now relinquished my plans, and have told you why.’

A pause of some moments ensued, and Rust said: ‘Is there any thing more that you want? If so, tell me at once, for after to-day we shall never meet again.’

Holmes ran his eye over the papers, and selecting two letters, handed them to Rust, and said:

‘How do you account for the difference of that hand-writing, if Michael Rust and Henry Colton are one?’

‘Michael Rust wrote one hand, Henry Colton another,’ said Rust; ‘but I wrote both.’ He seized a pen, wrote a few words, signed the names Michael Rust and Henry Colton, and flung it on the table. ‘The game had been well studied before it was played.’

‘Your writing is well disguised indeed,’ said the lawyer, comparing it with the letters; ‘it solves that difficulty.’

‘Any thing else?’ demanded Rust, impatiently; ‘my time is limited.’

Holmes shook his head; but Harson said: ‘A few words about Jacob Rhoneland.’

‘Well?’

‘You accuse him of forgery; what does that mean?’

‘He was a fool: I wanted to marry his daughter; I represented myself to him as very rich, to tempt his avarice; that failed. I added entreaties; they failed. Then I tried the effect of fear. He was not deaf to that for a long time, but at last he overcame even that.’

‘And the tale?’

‘Was well fabricated, but false.’

‘And Ned Somers?’

‘I had to get rid of him: what could I do while he was dallying round the girl? I did get rid of him: a few lies whispered to the old man sent him adrift. But I’m tired of this; I came to tell what I pleased, and nothing more, and I must be at work. You must respect your promise,’ said he, turning to Holmes.

‘I shall, and I hope your present errand at least is an honest one.’

‘It is,’ said Rust, with a strange smile; ‘it is to punish a criminal.’ He opened the door and went off without another word.

NIGHT AND MORNING

‘To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new!’

    Lycidas.

Yes! I have been for many a changeful year,
Studious or sensual, gay or wild, or sad,
An earnest votary of Evening. She
Had something wondrous winning to my eye,
So soft she was, and quiet. Often too,
Absorbed in books, which were perchance a bane,
Perchance a blessing; or in glittering crowds,
Gazing all rapt on woman’s eloquent face,
Nature’s most witching and most treacherous page;